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Title: My Aunt Margaret's Mirror
From Short Stories Published in "The Keepsake Annual" of 1828
Author: Sir Walter Scott
Release Date: October 23, 2008 [EBook #1667]
Last Updated: August 31, 2016
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MY AUNT MARGARET’S MIRROR

by Sir Walter Scott

From Short Stories Published in “The Keepsake Annual” of 1828

Contents

INTRODUCTION.

The species of publication which has come to be generally known by the
title of ANNUAL, being a miscellany of prose and verse, equipped with
numerous engravings, and put forth every year about Christmas, had
flourished for a long while in Germany before it was imitated in this
country by an enterprising bookseller, a German by birth, Mr. Ackermann.
The rapid success of his work, as is the custom of the time, gave birth to
a host of rivals, and, among others, to an Annual styled The Keepsake, the
first volume of which appeared in 1828, and attracted much notice, chiefly
in consequence of the very uncommon splendour of its illustrative
accompaniments. The expenditure which the spirited proprietors lavished on
this magnificent volume is understood to have been not less than from ten
to twelve thousand pounds sterling!

Various gentlemen of such literary reputation that any one might think it
an honour to be associated with them had been announced as contributors to
this Annual, before application was made to me to assist in it; and I
accordingly placed with much pleasure at the Editor’s disposal a few
fragments, originally designed to have been worked into the Chronicles of
the Canongate, besides a manuscript drama, the long-neglected performance
of my youthful days—“The House of Aspen.”

The Keepsake for 1828 included, however, only three of these little prose
tales, of which the first in order was that entitled “My Aunt Margaret’s
Mirror.” By way of INTRODUCTION to this, when now included in a general
collection of my lucubrations, I have only to say that it is a mere
transcript, or at least with very little embellishment, of a story that I
remembered being struck with in my childhood, when told at the fireside by
a lady of eminent virtues and no inconsiderable share of talent, one of
the ancient and honourable house of Swinton. She was a kind of relation of
my own, and met her death in a manner so shocking—being killed, in a
fit of insanity, by a female attendant who had been attached to her person
for half a lifetime—that I cannot now recall her memory, child as I
was when the catastrophe occurred, without a painful reawakening of
perhaps the first images of horror that the scenes of real life stamped on
my mind.

This good spinster had in her composition a strong vein of the
superstitious, and was pleased, among other fancies, to read alone in her
chamber by a taper fixed in a candlestick which she had had formed out of
a human skull. One night this strange piece of furniture acquired suddenly
the power of locomotion, and, after performing some odd circles on her
chimney-piece, fairly leaped on the floor, and continued to roll about the
apartment. Mrs. Swinton calmly proceeded to the adjoining room for another
light, and had the satisfaction to penetrate the mystery on the spot. Rats
abounded in the ancient building she inhabited, and one of these had
managed to ensconce itself within her favourite MEMENTO MORI. Though thus
endowed with a more than feminine share of nerve, she entertained largely
that belief in supernaturals which in those times was not considered as
sitting ungracefully on the grave and aged of her condition; and the story
of the Magic Mirror was one for which she vouched with particular
confidence, alleging indeed that one of her own family had been an
eye-witness of the incidents recorded in it.

“I tell the tale as it was told to me.”

Stories enow of much the same cast will present themselves to the
recollection of such of my readers as have ever dabbled in a species of
lore to which I certainly gave more hours, at one period of my life, than
I should gain any credit by confessing.

AUGUST 1831.

AUNT MARGARET’S MIRROR.

“There are times
When Fancy plays her gambols, in despite
Even of our watchful senses—when in sooth
Substance seems shadow, shadow substance seems—
When the broad, palpable, and mark’d partition
‘Twixt that which is and is not seems dissolved,
As if the mental eye gain’d power to gaze
Beyond the limits of the existing world.
Such hours of shadowy dreams I better love
Than all the gross realities of life.” ANONYMOUS.

My Aunt Margaret was one of that respected sisterhood upon whom devolve
all the trouble and solicitude incidental to the possession of children,
excepting only that which attends their entrance into the world. We were a
large family, of very different dispositions and constitutions. Some were
dull and peevish—they were sent to Aunt Margaret to be amused; some
were rude, romping, and boisterous—they were sent to Aunt Margaret
to be kept quiet, or rather that their noise might be removed out of
hearing; those who were indisposed were sent with the prospect of being
nursed; those who were stubborn, with the hope of their being subdued by
the kindness of Aunt Margaret’s discipline;—in short, she had all
the various duties of a mother, without the credit and dignity of the
maternal character. The busy scene of her various cares is now over. Of
the invalids and the robust, the kind and the rough, the peevish and
pleased children, who thronged her little parlour from morning to night,
not one now remains alive but myself, who, afflicted by early infirmity,
was one of the most delicate of her nurslings, yet, nevertheless, have
outlived them all.

It is still my custom, and shall be so while I have the use of my limbs,
to visit my respected relation at least three times a week. Her abode is
about half a mile from the suburbs of the town in which I reside, and is
accessible, not only by the highroad, from which it stands at some
distance, but by means of a greensward footpath leading through some
pretty meadows. I have so little left to torment me in life, that it is
one of my greatest vexations to know that several of these sequestered
fields have been devoted as sites for building. In that which is nearest
the town, wheelbarrows have been at work for several weeks in such
numbers, that, I verily believe, its whole surface, to the depth of at
least eighteen inches, was mounted in these monotrochs at the same moment,
and in the act of being transported from one place to another. Huge
triangular piles of planks are also reared in different parts of the
devoted messuage; and a little group of trees that still grace the eastern
end, which rises in a gentle ascent, have just received warning to quit,
expressed by a daub of white paint, and are to give place to a curious
grove of chimneys.

It would, perhaps, hurt others in my situation to reflect that this little
range of pasturage once belonged to my father (whose family was of some
consideration in the world), and was sold by patches to remedy distresses
in which he involved himself in an attempt by commercial adventure to
redeem his diminished fortune. While the building scheme was in full
operation, this circumstance was often pointed out to me by the class of
friends who are anxious that no part of your misfortunes should escape
your observation. “Such pasture-ground!—lying at the very town’s end—in
turnips and potatoes, the parks would bring L20 per acre; and if leased
for building—oh, it was a gold mine! And all sold for an old song
out of the ancient possessor’s hands!” My comforters cannot bring me to
repine much on this subject. If I could be allowed to look back on the
past without interruption, I could willingly give up the enjoyment of
present income and the hope of future profit to those who have purchased
what my father sold. I regret the alteration of the ground only because it
destroys associations, and I would more willingly (I think) see the Earl’s
Closes in the hands of strangers, retaining their silvan appearance, than
know them for my own, if torn up by agriculture, or covered with
buildings. Mine are the sensations of poor Logan:—

“The horrid plough has rased the green
Where yet a child I strayed;
The axe has fell’d the hawthorn screen,
The schoolboy’s summer shade.”

I hope, however, the threatened devastation will not be consummated in my
day. Although the adventurous spirit of times short while since passed
gave rise to the undertaking, I have been encouraged to think that the
subsequent changes have so far damped the spirit of speculation that the
rest of the woodland footpath leading to Aunt Margaret’s retreat will be
left undisturbed for her time and mine. I am interested in this, for every
step of the way, after I have passed through the green already mentioned,
has for me something of early remembrance:—There is the stile at
which I can recollect a cross child’s-maid upbraiding me with my infirmity
as she lifted me coarsely and carelessly over the flinty steps, which my
brothers traversed with shout and bound. I remember the suppressed
bitterness of the moment, and, conscious of my own inferiority, the
feeling of envy with which I regarded the easy movements and elastic steps
of my more happily formed brethren. Alas! these goodly barks have all
perished on life’s wide ocean, and only that which seemed so little
seaworthy, as the naval phrase goes, has reached the port when the tempest
is over. Then there is the pool, where, manoeuvring our little navy,
constructed out of the broad water-flags, my elder brother fell in, and
was scarce saved from the watery element to die under Nelson’s banner.
There is the hazel copse also, in which my brother Henry used to gather
nuts, thinking little that he was to die in an Indian jungle in quest of
rupees.

There is so much more of remembrance about the little walk, that—as
I stop, rest on my crutch-headed cane, and look round with that species of
comparison between the thing I was and that which I now am—it almost
induces me to doubt my own identity; until I find myself in face of the
honeysuckle porch of Aunt Margaret’s dwelling, with its irregularity of
front, and its odd, projecting latticed windows, where the workmen seem to
have made it a study that no one of them should resemble another in form,
size, or in the old-fashioned stone entablature and labels which adorn
them. This tenement, once the manor house of the Earl’s Closes, we still
retain a slight hold upon; for, in some family arrangements, it had been
settled upon Aunt Margaret during the term of her life. Upon this frail
tenure depends, in a great measure, the last shadow of the family of
Bothwell of Earl’s Closes, and their last slight connection with their
paternal inheritance. The only representative will then be an infirm old
man, moving not unwillingly to the grave, which has devoured all that were
dear to his affections.

When I have indulged such thoughts for a minute or two, I enter the
mansion, which is said to have been the gate-house only of the original
building, and find one being on whom time seems to have made little
impression; for the Aunt Margaret of to-day bears the same proportional
age to the Aunt Margaret of my early youth that the boy of ten years old
does to the man of (by’r Lady!) some fifty-six years. The old lady’s
invariable costume has doubtless some share in confirming one in the
opinion that time has stood still with Aunt Margaret.

The brown or chocolate-coloured silk gown, with ruffles of the same stuff
at the elbow, within which are others of Mechlin lace; the black silk
gloves, or mitts; the white hair combed back upon a roll; and the cap of
spotless cambric, which closes around the venerable countenance—as
they were not the costume of 1780, so neither were they that of 1826; they
are altogether a style peculiar to the individual Aunt Margaret. There she
still sits, as she sat thirty years since, with her wheel or the stocking,
which she works by the fire in winter and by the window in summer; or,
perhaps, venturing as far as the porch in an unusually fine summer
evening. Her frame, like some well-constructed piece of mechanics, still
performs the operations for which it had seemed destined—going its
round with an activity which is gradually diminished, yet indicating no
probability that it will soon come to a period.

The solicitude and affection which had made Aunt Margaret the willing
slave to the inflictions of a whole nursery, have now for their object the
health and comfort of one old and infirm man—the last remaining
relative of her family, and the only one who can still find interest in
the traditional stores which she hoards, as some miser hides the gold
which he desires that no one should enjoy after his death.

My conversation with Aunt Margaret generally relates little either to the
present or to the future. For the passing day we possess as much as we
require, and we neither of us wish for more; and for that which is to
follow, we have, on this side of the grave, neither hopes, nor fears, nor
anxiety. We therefore naturally look back to the past, and forget the
present fallen fortunes and declined importance of our family in recalling
the hours when it was wealthy and prosperous.

With this slight introduction, the reader will know as much of Aunt
Margaret and her nephew as is necessary to comprehend the following
conversation and narrative.

Last week, when, late in a summer evening, I went to call on the old lady
to whom my reader is now introduced, I was received by her with all her
usual affection and benignity, while, at the same time, she seemed
abstracted and disposed to silence. I asked her the reason. “They have
been clearing out the old chapel,” she said; “John Clayhudgeons having, it
seems, discovered that the stuff within—being, I suppose, the
remains of our ancestors—was excellent for top-dressing the
meadows.”

Here I started up with more alacrity than I have displayed for some years;
but sat down while my aunt added, laying her hand upon my sleeve, “The
chapel has been long considered as common ground, my dear, and used for a
pinfold, and what objection can we have to the man for employing what is
his own to his own profit? Besides, I did speak to him, and he very
readily and civilly promised that if he found bones or monuments, they
should be carefully respected and reinstated; and what more could I ask?
So, the first stone they found bore the name of Margaret Bothwell, 1585,
and I have caused it to be laid carefully aside, as I think it betokens
death, and having served my namesake two hundred years, it has just been
cast up in time to do me the same good turn. My house has been long put in
order, as far as the small earthly concerns require it; but who shall say
that their account with, Heaven is sufficiently revised?”

“After what you have said, aunt,” I replied, “perhaps I ought to take my
hat and go away; and so I should, but that there is on this occasion a
little alloy mingled with your devotion. To think of death at all times is
a duty—to suppose it nearer from the finding an old gravestone is
superstition; and you, with your strong, useful common sense, which was so
long the prop of a fallen family, are the last person whom I should have
suspected of such weakness.”

“Neither would I deserve your suspicions, kinsman,” answered Aunt
Margaret, “if we were speaking of any incident occurring in the actual
business of human life. But for all this, I have a sense of superstition
about me, which I do not wish to part with. It is a feeling which
separates me from this age, and links me with that to which I am
hastening; and even when it seems, as now, to lead me to the brink of the
grave, and bid me gaze on it, I do not love that it should be dispelled.
It soothes my imagination, without influencing my reason or conduct.”

“I profess, my good lady,” replied I, “that had any one but you made such
a declaration, I should have thought it as capricious as that of the
clergyman, who, without vindicating his false reading, preferred, from
habit’s sake, his old Mumpsimus to the modern Sumpsimus.”

“Well,” answered my aunt, “I must explain my inconsistency in this
particular by comparing it to another. I am, as you know, a piece of that
old-fashioned thing called a Jacobite; but I am so in sentiment and
feeling only, for a more loyal subject never joined in prayers for the
health and wealth of George the Fourth, whom God long preserve! But I dare
say that kind-hearted sovereign would not deem that an old woman did him
much injury if she leaned back in her arm-chair, just in such a twilight
as this, and thought of the high-mettled men whose sense of duty called
them to arms against his grandfather; and how, in a cause which they
deemed that of their rightful prince and country,

‘They fought till their hand to the broadsword was glued,
They fought against fortune with hearts unsubdued.’

Do not come at such a moment, when my head is full of plaids, pibrochs,
and claymores, and ask my reason to admit what, I am afraid, it cannot
deny—I mean, that the public advantage peremptorily demanded that
these things should cease to exist. I cannot, indeed, refuse to allow the
justice of your reasoning; but yet, being convinced against my will, you
will gain little by your motion. You might as well read to an infatuated
lover the catalogue of his mistress’s imperfections; for when he has been
compelled to listen to the summary, you will only get for answer that ‘he
lo’es her a’ the better.’”

I was not sorry to have changed the gloomy train of Aunt Margaret’s
thoughts, and replied in the same tone, “Well, I can’t help being
persuaded that our good King is the more sure of Mrs. Bothwell’s loyal
affection, that he has the Stewart right of birth as well as the Act of
Succession in his favour.”

“Perhaps my attachment, were its source of consequence, might be found
warmer for the union of the rights you mention,” said Aunt Margaret; “but,
upon my word, it would be as sincere if the King’s right were founded only
on the will of the nation, as declared at the Revolution. I am none of
your JURE DIVINO folks.”

“And a Jacobite notwithstanding.”

“And a Jacobite notwithstanding—or rather, I will give you leave to
call me one of the party which, in Queen Anne’s time, were called,
WHIMSICALS, because they were sometimes operated upon by feelings,
sometimes by principle. After all, it is very hard that you will not allow
an old woman to be as inconsistent in her political sentiments as mankind
in general show themselves in all the various courses of life; since you
cannot point out one of them in which the passions and prejudices of those
who pursue it are not perpetually carrying us away from the path which our
reason points out.”

“True, aunt; but you are a wilful wanderer, who should be forced back into
the right path.”

I tell you, kinsman, that the sort of waking dreams which my imagination
spins out, in what your favourite Wordsworth calls ‘moods of my own mind,’
are worth all the rest of my more active days. Then, instead of looking
forwards, as I did in youth, and forming for myself fairy palaces, upon
the verge of the grave I turn my eyes backward upon the days and manners
of my better time; and the sad, yet soothing recollections come so close
and interesting, that I almost think it sacrilege to be wiser or more
rational or less prejudiced than those to whom I looked up in my younger
years.”

“I think I now understand what you mean,” I answered, “and can comprehend
why you should occasionally prefer the twilight of illusion to the steady
light of reason.”

“Where there is no task,” she rejoined, “to be performed, we may sit in
the dark if we like it; if we go to work, we must ring for candles.”

“And amidst such shadowy and doubtful light,” continued I, “imagination
frames her enchanted and enchanting visions, and sometimes passes them
upon the senses for reality.”

“Yes,” said Aunt Margaret, who is a well-read woman, “to those who
resemble the translator of Tasso,—

It is not required for this purpose that you should be sensible of the
painful horrors which an actual belief in such prodigies inflicts. Such a
belief nowadays belongs only to fools and children. It is not necessary
that your ears should tingle and your complexion change, like that of
Theodore at the approach of the spectral huntsman. All that is
indispensable for the enjoyment of the milder feeling of supernatural awe
is, that you should be susceptible of the slight shuddering which creeps
over you when you hear a tale of terror—that well-vouched tale which
the narrator, having first expressed his general disbelief of all such
legendary lore, selects and produces, as having something in it which he
has been always obliged to give up as inexplicable. Another symptom is a
momentary hesitation to look round you, when the interest of the narrative
is at the highest; and the third, a desire to avoid looking into a mirror
when you are alone in your chamber for the evening. I mean such are signs
which indicate the crisis, when a female imagination is in due temperature
to enjoy a ghost story. I do not pretend to describe those which express
the same disposition in a gentleman.”

“That last symptom, dear aunt, of shunning the mirror seems likely to be a
rare occurrence amongst the fair sex.”

“You are a novice in toilet fashions, my dear cousin. All women consult
the looking-glass with anxiety before they go into company; but when they
return home, the mirror has not the same charm. The die has been cast—the
party has been successful or unsuccessful in the impression which she
desired to make. But, without going deeper into the mysteries of the
dressing-table, I will tell you that I myself, like many other honest
folks, do not like to see the blank, black front of a large mirror in a
room dimly lighted, and where the reflection of the candle seems rather to
lose itself in the deep obscurity of the glass than to be reflected back
again into the apartment, That space of inky darkness seems to be a field
for Fancy to play her revels in. She may call up other features to meet
us, instead of the reflection of our own; or, as in the spells of
Hallowe’en, which we learned in childhood, some unknown form may be seen
peeping over our shoulder. In short, when I am in a ghost-seeing humour, I
make my handmaiden draw the green curtains over the mirror before I go
into the room, so that she may have the first shock of the apparition, if
there be any to be seen, But, to tell you the truth, this dislike to look
into a mirror in particular times and places has, I believe, its original
foundation in a story which came to me by tradition from my grandmother,
who was a party concerned in the scene of which I will now tell you.”

THE MIRROR.

CHAPTER I.

You are fond (said my aunt) of sketches of the society which has passed
away. I wish I could describe to you Sir Philip Forester, the “chartered
libertine” of Scottish good company, about the end of the last century. I
never saw him indeed; but my mother’s traditions were full of his wit,
gallantry, and dissipation. This gay knight flourished about the end of
the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century. He was the Sir
Charles Easy and the Lovelace of his day and country—renowned for
the number of duels he had fought, and the successful intrigues which he
had carried on. The supremacy which he had attained in the fashionable
world was absolute; and when we combine it with one or two anecdotes, for
which, “if laws were made for every degree,” he ought certainly to have
been hanged, the popularity of such a person really serves to show, either
that the present times are much more decent, if not more virtuous, than
they formerly were, or that high-breeding then was of more difficult
attainment than that which is now so called, and consequently entitled the
successful professor to a proportional degree of plenary indulgences and
privileges. No beau of this day could have borne out so ugly a story as
that of Pretty Peggy Grindstone, the miller’s daughter at Sillermills—it
had well-nigh made work for the Lord Advocate. But it hurt Sir Philip
Forester no more than the hail hurts the hearthstone. He was as well
received in society as ever, and dined with the Duke of A——
the day the poor girl was buried. She died of heartbreak. But that has
nothing to do with my story.

Now, you must listen to a single word upon kith, kin, and ally; I promise
you I will not be prolix. But it is necessary to the authenticity of my
legend that you should know that Sir Philip Forester, with his handsome
person, elegant accomplishments, and fashionable manners, married the
younger Miss Falconer of King’s Copland. The elder sister of this lady had
previously become the wife of my grandfather, Sir Geoffrey Bothwell, and
brought into our family a good fortune. Miss Jemima, or Miss Jemmie
Falconer, as she was usually called, had also about ten thousand pounds
sterling—then thought a very handsome portion indeed.

The two sisters were extremely different, though each had their admirers
while they remained single. Lady Bothwell had some touch of the old King’s
Copland blood about her. She was bold, though not to the degree of
audacity, ambitious, and desirous to raise her house and family; and was,
as has been said, a considerable spur to my grandfather, who was otherwise
an indolent man, but whom, unless he has been slandered, his lady’s
influence involved in some political matters which had been more wisely
let alone. She was a woman of high principle, however, and masculine good
sense, as some of her letters testify, which are still in my wainscot
cabinet.

Jemmie Falconer was the reverse of her sister in every respect. Her
understanding did not reach above the ordinary pitch, if, indeed, she
could be said to have attained it. Her beauty, while it lasted, consisted,
in a great measure, of delicacy of complexion and regularity of features,
without any peculiar force of expression. Even these charms faded under
the sufferings attendant on an ill-assorted match. She was passionately
attached to her husband, by whom she was treated with a callous yet polite
indifference, which, to one whose heart was as tender as her judgment was
weak, was more painful perhaps than absolute ill-usage. Sir Philip was a
voluptuary—that is, a completely selfish egotist—whose
disposition and character resembled the rapier he wore, polished, keen,
and brilliant, but inflexible and unpitying. As he observed carefully all
the usual forms towards his lady, he had the art to deprive her even of
the compassion of the world; and useless and unavailing as that may be
while actually possessed by the sufferer, it is, to a mind like Lady
Forester’s, most painful to know she has it not.

The tattle of society did its best to place the peccant husband above the
suffering wife. Some called her a poor, spiritless thing, and declared
that, with a little of her sister’s spirit, she might have brought to
reason any Sir Philip whatsoever, were it the termagant Falconbridge
himself. But the greater part of their acquaintance affected candour, and
saw faults on both sides—though, in fact, there only existed the
oppressor and the oppressed. The tone of such critics was, “To be sure, no
one will justify Sir Philip Forester, but then we all know Sir Philip, and
Jemmie Falconer might have known what she had to expect from the
beginning. What made her set her cap at Sir Philip? He would never have
looked at her if she had not thrown herself at his head, with her poor ten
thousand pounds. I am sure, if it is money he wanted, she spoiled his
market. I know where Sir Philip could have done much better. And then, if
she WOULD have the man, could not she try to make him more comfortable at
home, and have his friends oftener, and not plague him with the squalling
children, and take care all was handsome and in good style about the
house? I declare I think Sir Philip would have made a very domestic man,
with a woman who knew how to manage him.”

Now these fair critics, in raising their profound edifice of domestic
felicity, did not recollect that the corner-stone was wanting, and that to
receive good company with good cheer, the means of the banquet ought to
have been furnished by Sir Philip, whose income (dilapidated as it was)
was not equal to the display of the hospitality required, and at the same
time to the supply of the good knight’s MENUS PLAISIRS. So, in spite of
all that was so sagely suggested by female friends, Sir Philip carried his
good-humour everywhere abroad, and left at home a solitary mansion and a
pining spouse.

At length, inconvenienced in his money affairs, and tired even of the
short time which he spent in his own dull house, Sir Philip Forester
determined to take a trip to the Continent, in the capacity of a
volunteer. It was then common for men of fashion to do so; and our knight
perhaps was of opinion that a touch of the military character, just enough
to exalt, but not render pedantic, his qualities as a BEAU GARCON, was
necessary to maintain possession of the elevated situation which he held
in the ranks of fashion.

Sir Philip’s resolution threw his wife into agonies of terror; by which
the worthy baronet was so much annoyed, that, contrary to his wont, he
took some trouble to soothe her apprehensions, and once more brought her
to shed tears, in which sorrow was not altogether unmingled with pleasure.
Lady Bothwell asked, as a favour, Sir Philip’s permission to receive her
sister and her family into her own house during his absence on the
Continent. Sir Philip readily assented to a proposition which saved
expense, silenced the foolish people who might have talked of a deserted
wife and family, and gratified Lady Bothwell, for whom he felt some
respect, as for one who often spoke to him, always with freedom and
sometimes with severity, without being deterred either by his raillery or
the PRESTIGE of his reputation.

A day or two before Sir Philip’s departure, Lady Bothwell took the liberty
of asking him, in her sister’s presence, the direct question, which his
timid wife had often desired, but never ventured, to put to him:—

“Pray, Sir Philip, what route do you take when you reach the Continent?”

“I go from Leith to Helvoet by a packet with advices.”

“That I comprehend perfectly,” said Lady Bothwell dryly; “but you do not
mean to remain long at Helvoet, I presume, and I should like to know what
is your next object.”

“You ask me, my dear lady,” answered Sir Philip, “a question which I have
not dared to ask myself. The answer depends on the fate of war. I shall,
of course, go to headquarters, wherever they may happen to be for the
time; deliver my letters of introduction; learn as much of the noble art
of war as may suffice a poor interloping amateur; and then take a glance
at the sort of thing of which we read so much in the Gazette.”

“And I trust, Sir Philip,” said Lady Bothwell, “that you will remember
that you are a husband and a father; and that, though you think fit to
indulge this military fancy, you will not let it hurry you into dangers
which it is certainly unnecessary for any save professional persons to
encounter.”

“Lady Bothwell does me too much honour,” replied the adventurous knight,
“in regarding such a circumstance with the slightest interest. But to
soothe your flattering anxiety, I trust your ladyship will recollect that
I cannot expose to hazard the venerable and paternal character which you
so obligingly recommend to my protection, without putting in some peril an
honest fellow, called Philip Forester, with whom I have kept company for
thirty years, and with whom, though some folks consider him a coxcomb, I
have not the least desire to part.”

“Well, Sir Philip, you are the best judge of your own affairs. I have
little right to interfere—you are not my husband.”

“God forbid!” said Sir Philip hastily; instantly adding, however, “God
forbid that I should deprive my friend Sir Geoffrey of so inestimable a
treasure.”

“But you are my sister’s husband,” replied the lady; “and I suppose you
are aware of her present distress of mind—”

“If hearing of nothing else from morning to night can make me aware of
it,” said Sir Philip, “I should know something of the matter.”

“I do not pretend to reply to your wit, Sir Philip,” answered Lady
Bothwell; “but you must be sensible that all this distress is on account
of apprehensions for your personal safety.”

“In that case, I am surprised that Lady Bothwell, at least, should give
herself so much trouble upon so insignificant a subject.”

“My sister’s interest may account for my being anxious to learn something
of Sir Philip Forester’s motions; about which, otherwise, I know he would
not wish me to concern myself. I have a brother’s safety too to be anxious
for.”

“You mean Major Falconer, your brother by the mother’s side? What can he
possibly have to do with our present agreeable conversation?”

“You have had words together, Sir Philip,” said Lady Bothwell.

“Naturally; we are connections,” replied Sir Philip, “and as such have
always had the usual intercourse.”

“That is an evasion of the subject,” answered the lady. “By words, I mean
angry words, on the subject of your usage of your wife.”

“If,” replied Sir Philip Forester, “you suppose Major Falconer simple
enough to intrude his advice upon me, Lady Bothwell, in my domestic
matters, you are indeed warranted in believing that I might possibly be so
far displeased with the interference as to request him to reserve his
advice till it was asked.”

“And being on these terms, you are going to join the very army in which my
brother Falconer is now serving?”

“No man knows the path of honour better than Major Falconer,” said Sir
Philip. “An aspirant after fame, like me, cannot choose a better guide
than his footsteps.”

Lady Bothwell rose and went to the window, the tears gushing from her
eyes.

“And this heartless raillery,” she said, “is all the consideration that is
to be given to our apprehensions of a quarrel which may bring on the most
terrible consequences? Good God! of what can men’s hearts be made, who can
thus dally with the agony of others?”

Sir Philip Forester was moved; he laid aside the mocking tone in which he
had hitherto spoken.

“Dear Lady Bothwell,” he said, taking her reluctant hand, “we are both
wrong. You are too deeply serious; I, perhaps, too little so. The dispute
I had with Major Falconer was of no earthly consequence. Had anything
occurred betwixt us that ought to have been settled PAR VOIE DU FAIT, as
we say in France, neither of us are persons that are likely to postpone
such a meeting. Permit me to say, that were it generally known that you or
my Lady Forester are apprehensive of such a catastrophe, it might be the
very means of bringing about what would not otherwise be likely to happen.
I know your good sense, Lady Bothwell, and that you will understand me
when I say that really my affairs require my absence for some months. This
Jemima cannot understand. It is a perpetual recurrence of questions, why
can you not do this, or that, or the third thing? and, when you have
proved to her that her expedients are totally ineffectual, you have just
to begin the whole round again. Now, do you tell her, dear Lady Bothwell,
that YOU are satisfied. She is, you must confess, one of those persons
with whom authority goes farther than reasoning. Do but repose a little
confidence in me, and you shall see how amply I will repay it.”

Lady Bothwell shook her head, as one but half satisfied. “How difficult it
is to extend confidence, when the basis on which it ought to rest has been
so much shaken! But I will do my best to make Jemima easy; and further, I
can only say that for keeping your present purpose I hold you responsible
both to God and man.”

“Do not fear that I will deceive you,” said Sir Philip. “The safest
conveyance to me will be through the general post-office, Helvoetsluys,
where I will take care to leave orders for forwarding my letters. As for
Falconer, our only encounter will be over a bottle of Burgundy; so make
yourself perfectly easy on his score.”

Lady Bothwell could NOT make herself easy; yet she was sensible that her
sister hurt her own cause by TAKING ON, as the maidservants call it, too
vehemently, and by showing before every stranger, by manner, and sometimes
by words also, a dissatisfaction with her husband’s journey that was sure
to come to his ears, and equally certain to displease him. But there was
no help for this domestic dissension, which ended only with the day of
separation.

I am sorry I cannot tell, with precision, the year in which Sir Philip
Forester went over to Flanders; but it was one of those in which the
campaign opened with extraordinary fury, and many bloody, though
indecisive, skirmishes were fought between the French on the one side and
the Allies on the other. In all our modern improvements, there are none,
perhaps, greater than in the accuracy and speed with which intelligence is
transmitted from any scene of action to those in this country whom it may
concern. During Marlborough’s campaigns, the sufferings of the many who
had relations in, or along with, the army were greatly augmented by the
suspense in which they were detained for weeks after they had heard of
bloody battles, in which, in all probability, those for whom their bosoms
throbbed with anxiety had been personally engaged. Amongst those who were
most agonized by this state of uncertainty was the—I had almost said
deserted—wife of the gay Sir Philip Forester. A single letter had
informed her of his arrival on the Continent; no others were received. One
notice occurred in the newspapers, in which Volunteer Sir Philip Forester
was mentioned as having been entrusted with a dangerous reconnaissance,
which he had executed with the greatest courage, dexterity, and
intelligence, and received the thanks of the commanding officer. The sense
of his having acquired distinction brought a momentary glow into the
lady’s pale cheek; but it was instantly lost in ashen whiteness at the
recollection of his danger. After this, they had no news whatever, neither
from Sir Philip, nor even from their brother Falconer. The case of Lady
Forester was not indeed different from that of hundreds in the same
situation; but a feeble mind is necessarily an irritable one, and the
suspense which some bear with constitutional indifference or philosophical
resignation, and some with a disposition to believe and hope the best, was
intolerable to Lady Forester, at once solitary and sensitive,
low-spirited, and devoid of strength of mind, whether natural or acquired.

CHAPTER II.

As she received no further news of Sir Philip, whether directly or
indirectly, his unfortunate lady began now to feel a sort of consolation
even in those careless habits which had so often given her pain. “He is so
thoughtless,” she repeated a hundred times a day to her sister, “he never
writes when things are going on smoothly. It is his way. Had anything
happened, he would have informed us.”

Lady Bothwell listened to her sister without attempting to console her.
Probably she might be of opinion that even the worst intelligence which
could be received from Flanders might not be without some touch of
consolation; and that the Dowager Lady Forester, if so she was doomed to
be called, might have a source of happiness unknown to the wife of the
gayest and finest gentleman in Scotland. This conviction became stronger
as they learned from inquiries made at headquarters that Sir Philip was no
longer with the army—though whether he had been taken or slain in
some of those skirmishes which were perpetually occurring, and in which he
loved to distinguish himself, or whether he had, for some unknown reason
or capricious change of mind, voluntarily left the service, none of his
countrymen in the camp of the Allies could form even a conjecture.
Meantime his creditors at home became clamorous, entered into possession
of his property, and threatened his person, should he be rash enough to
return to Scotland. These additional disadvantages aggravated Lady
Bothwell’s displeasure against the fugitive husband; while her sister saw
nothing in any of them, save what tended to increase her grief for the
absence of him whom her imagination now represented—as it had before
marriage—gallant, gay, and affectionate.

About this period there appeared in Edinburgh a man of singular appearance
and pretensions. He was commonly called the Paduan Doctor, from having
received his education at that famous university. He was supposed to
possess some rare receipts in medicine, with which, it was affirmed, he
had wrought remarkable cures. But though, on the one hand, the physicians
of Edinburgh termed him an empiric, there were many persons, and among
them some of the clergy, who, while they admitted the truth of the cures
and the force of his remedies, alleged that Doctor Baptista Damiotti made
use of charms and unlawful arts in order to obtain success in his
practice. The resorting to him was even solemnly preached against, as a
seeking of health from idols, and a trusting to the help which was to come
from Egypt. But the protection which the Paduan Doctor received from some
friends of interest and consequence enabled him to set these imputations
at defiance, and to assume, even in the city of Edinburgh, famed as it was
for abhorrence of witches and necromancers, the dangerous character of an
expounder of futurity. It was at length rumoured that, for a certain
gratification, which of course was not an inconsiderable one, Doctor
Baptista Damiotti could tell the fate of the absent, and even show his
visitors the personal form of their absent friends, and the action in
which they were engaged at the moment. This rumour came to the ears of
Lady Forester, who had reached that pitch of mental agony in which the
sufferer will do anything, or endure anything, that suspense may be
converted into certainty.

Gentle and timid in most cases, her state of mind made her equally
obstinate and reckless, and it was with no small surprise and alarm that
her sister, Lady Bothwell, heard her express a resolution to visit this
man of art, and learn from him the fate of her husband. Lady Bothwell
remonstrated on the improbability that such pretensions as those of this
foreigner could be founded in anything but imposture.

“I care not,” said the deserted wife, “what degree of ridicule I may
incur; if there be any one chance out of a hundred that I may obtain some
certainty of my husband’s fate, I would not miss that chance for whatever
else the world can offer me.”

Lady Bothwell next urged the unlawfulness of resorting to such sources of
forbidden knowledge.

“Sister,” replied the sufferer, “he who is dying of thirst cannot refrain
from drinking even poisoned water. She who suffers under suspense must
seek information, even were the powers which offer it unhallowed and
infernal. I go to learn my fate alone, and this very evening will I know
it; the sun that rises to-morrow shall find me, if not more happy, at
least more resigned.”

“Sister,” said Lady Bothwell, “if you are determined upon this wild step,
you shall not go alone. If this man be an impostor, you may be too much
agitated by your feelings to detect his villainy. If, which I cannot
believe, there be any truth in what he pretends, you shall not be exposed
alone to a communication of so extraordinary a nature. I will go with you,
if indeed you determine to go. But yet reconsider your project, and
renounce inquiries which cannot be prosecuted without guilt, and perhaps
without danger.”

Lady Forester threw herself into her sister’s arms, and, clasping her to
her bosom, thanked her a hundred times for the offer of her company, while
she declined with a melancholy gesture the friendly advice with which it
was accompanied.

When the hour of twilight arrived—which was the period when the
Paduan Doctor was understood to receive the visits of those who came to
consult with him—the two ladies left their apartments in the
Canongate of Edinburgh, having their dress arranged like that of women of
an inferior description, and their plaids disposed around their faces as
they were worn by the same class; for in those days of aristocracy the
quality of the wearer was generally indicated by the manner in which her
plaid was disposed, as well as by the fineness of its texture. It was Lady
Bothwell who had suggested this species of disguise, partly to avoid
observation as they should go to the conjurer’s house, and partly in order
to make trial of his penetration, by appearing before him in a feigned
character. Lady Forester’s servant, of tried fidelity, had been employed
by her to propitiate the Doctor by a suitable fee, and a story intimating
that a soldier’s wife desired to know the fate of her husband—a
subject upon which, in all probability, the sage was very frequently
consulted.

To the last moment, when the palace clock struck eight, Lady Bothwell
earnestly watched her sister, in hopes that she might retreat from her
rash undertaking; but as mildness, and even timidity, is capable at times
of vehement and fixed purposes, she found Lady Forester resolutely unmoved
and determined when the moment of departure arrived. Ill satisfied with
the expedition, but determined not to leave her sister at such a crisis,
Lady Bothwell accompanied Lady Forester through more than one obscure
street and lane, the servant walking before, and acting as their guide. At
length he suddenly turned into a narrow court, and knocked at an arched
door which seemed to belong to a building of some antiquity. It opened,
though no one appeared to act as porter; and the servant, stepping aside
from the entrance, motioned the ladies to enter. They had no sooner done
so than it shut, and excluded their guide. The two ladies found themselves
in a small vestibule, illuminated by a dim lamp, and having, when the door
was closed, no communication with the external light or air. The door of
an inner apartment, partly open, was at the farther side of the vestibule.

“We must not hesitate now, Jemima,” said Lady Bothwell, and walked
forwards into the inner room, where, surrounded by books, maps,
philosophical utensils, and other implements of peculiar shape and
appearance, they found the man of art.

There was nothing very peculiar in the Italian’s appearance. He had the
dark complexion and marked features of his country, seemed about fifty
years old, and was handsomely but plainly dressed in a full suit of black
clothes, which was then the universal costume of the medical profession.
Large wax-lights, in silver sconces, illuminated the apartment, which was
reasonably furnished. He rose as the ladies entered, and, notwithstanding
the inferiority of their dress, received them with the marked respect due
to their quality, and which foreigners are usually punctilious in
rendering to those to whom such honours are due.

Lady Bothwell endeavoured to maintain her proposed incognito, and, as the
Doctor ushered them to the upper end of the room, made a motion declining
his courtesy, as unfitted for their condition. “We are poor people, sir,”
she said; “only my sister’s distress has brought us to consult your
worship whether—”

He smiled as he interrupted her—“I am aware, madam, of your sister’s
distress, and its cause; I am aware, also, that I am honoured with a visit
from two ladies of the highest consideration—Lady Bothwell and Lady
Forester. If I could not distinguish them from the class of society which
their present dress would indicate, there would be small possibility of my
being able to gratify them by giving the information which they come to
seek.”

“I can easily understand—” said Lady Bothwell.

“Pardon my boldness to interrupt you, milady,” cried the Italian; “your
ladyship was about to say that you could easily understand that I had got
possession of your names by means of your domestic. But in thinking so,
you do injustice to the fidelity of your servant, and, I may add, to the
skill of one who is also not less your humble servant—Baptista
Damiotti.”

“I have no intention to do either, sir,” said Lady Bothwell, maintaining a
tone of composure, though somewhat surprised; “but the situation is
something new to me. If you know who we are, you also know, sir, what
brought us here.”

“Curiosity to know the fate of a Scottish gentleman of rank, now, or
lately, upon the Continent,” answered the seer. “His name is Il Cavaliero
Philippo Forester, a gentleman who has the honour to be husband to this
lady, and, with your ladyship’s permission for using plain language, the
misfortune not to value as it deserves that inestimable advantage.”

Lady Forester sighed deeply, and Lady Bothwell replied,—

“Since you know our object without our telling it, the only question that
remains is, whether you have the power to relieve my sister’s anxiety?”

“I have, madam,” answered the Paduan scholar; “but there is still a
previous inquiry. Have you the courage to behold with your own eyes what
the Cavaliero Philippo Forester is now doing? or will you take it on my
report?”

“With my own eyes will I endure to see whatever you have power to show
me,” said Lady Forester, with the same determined spirit which had
stimulated her since her resolution was taken upon this subject.

“There may be danger in it.”

“If gold can compensate the risk,” said Lady Forester, taking out her
purse.

“I do not such things for the purpose of gain,” answered the foreigner; “I
dare not turn my art to such a purpose. If I take the gold of the wealthy,
it is but to bestow it on the poor; nor do I ever accept more than the sum
I have already received from your servant. Put up your purse, madam; an
adept needs not your gold.”

Lady Bothwell, considering this rejection of her sister’s offer as a mere
trick of an empiric, to induce her to press a larger sum upon him, and
willing that the scene should be commenced and ended, offered some gold in
turn, observing that it was only to enlarge the sphere of his charity.

“Let Lady Bothwell enlarge the sphere of her own charity,” said the
Paduan, “not merely in giving of alms, in which I know she is not
deficient, but in judging the character of others; and let her oblige
Baptista Damiotti by believing him honest, till she shall discover him to
be a knave. Do not be surprised, madam, if I speak in answer to your
thoughts rather than your expressions; and tell me once more whether you
have courage to look on what I am prepared to show?”

“I own, sir,” said Lady Bothwell, “that your words strike me with some
sense of fear; but whatever my sister desires to witness, I will not
shrink from witnessing along with her.”

“Nay, the danger only consists in the risk of your resolution failing you.
The sight can only last for the space of seven minutes; and should you
interrupt the vision by speaking a single word, not only would the charm
be broken, but some danger might result to the spectators. But if you can
remain steadily silent for the seven minutes, your curiosity will be
gratified without the slightest risk; and for this I will engage my
honour.”

Internally Lady Bothwell thought the security was but an indifferent one;
but she suppressed the suspicion, as if she had believed that the adept,
whose dark features wore a half-formed smile, could in reality read even
her most secret reflections. A solemn pause then ensued, until Lady
Forester gathered courage enough to reply to the physician, as he termed
himself, that she would abide with firmness and silence the sight which he
had promised to exhibit to them. Upon this, he made them a low obeisance,
and saying he went to prepare matters to meet their wish, left the
apartment. The two sisters, hand in hand, as if seeking by that close
union to divert any danger which might threaten them, sat down on two
seats in immediate contact with each other—Jemima seeking support in
the manly and habitual courage of Lady Bothwell; and she, on the other
hand, more agitated than she had expected, endeavouring to fortify herself
by the desperate resolution which circumstances had forced her sister to
assume. The one perhaps said to herself that her sister never feared
anything; and the other might reflect that what so feeble-minded a woman
as Jemima did not fear, could not properly be a subject of apprehension to
a person of firmness and resolution like her own.

In a few moments the thoughts of both were diverted from their own
situation by a strain of music so singularly sweet and solemn that, while
it seemed calculated to avert or dispel any feeling unconnected with its
harmony, increased, at the same time, the solemn excitation which the
preceding interview was calculated to produce. The music was that of some
instrument with which they were unacquainted; but circumstances afterwards
led my ancestress to believe that it was that of the harmonica, which she
heard at a much later period in life.

When these heaven-born sounds had ceased, a door opened in the upper end
of the apartment, and they saw Damiotti, standing at the head of two or
three steps, sign to them to advance. His dress was so different from that
which he had worn a few minutes before, that they could hardly recognize
him; and the deadly paleness of his countenance, and a certain stern
rigidity of muscles, like that of one whose mind is made up to some
strange and daring action, had totally changed the somewhat sarcastic
expression with which he had previously regarded them both, and
particularly Lady Bothwell. He was barefooted, excepting a species of
sandals in the antique fashion; his legs were naked beneath the knees;
above them he wore hose, and a doublet of dark crimson silk close to his
body; and over that a flowing loose robe, something resembling a surplice,
of snow-white linen. His throat and neck were uncovered, and his long,
straight, black hair was carefully combed down at full length.

As the ladies approached at his bidding, he showed no gesture of that
ceremonious courtesy of which he had been formerly lavish. On the
contrary, he made the signal of advance with an air of command; and when,
arm in arm, and with insecure steps, the sisters approached the spot where
he stood, it was with a warning frown that he pressed his finger to his
lips, as if reiterating his condition of absolute silence, while, stalking
before them, he led the way into the next apartment.

This was a large room, hung with black, as if for a funeral. At the upper
end was a table, or rather a species of altar, covered with the same
lugubrious colour, on which lay divers objects resembling the usual
implements of sorcery. These objects were not indeed visible as they
advanced into the apartment; for the light which displayed them, being
only that of two expiring lamps, was extremely faint. The master—to
use the Italian phrase for persons of this description—approached
the upper end of the room, with a genuflection like that of a Catholic to
the crucifix, and at the same time crossed himself. The ladies followed in
silence, and arm in arm. Two or three low broad steps led to a platform in
front of the altar, or what resembled such. Here the sage took his stand,
and placed the ladies beside him, once more earnestly repeating by signs
his injunctions of silence. The Italian then, extending his bare arm from
under his linen vestment, pointed with his forefinger to five large
flambeaux, or torches, placed on each side of the altar. They took fire
successively at the approach of his hand, or rather of his finger, and
spread a strong light through the room. By this the visitors could discern
that, on the seeming altar, were disposed two naked swords laid crosswise;
a large open book, which they conceived to be a copy of the Holy
Scriptures, but in a language to them unknown; and beside this mysterious
volume was placed a human skull. But what struck the sisters most was a
very tall and broad mirror, which occupied all the space behind the altar,
and, illumined by the lighted torches, reflected the mysterious articles
which were laid upon it.

The master then placed himself between the two ladies, and, pointing to
the mirror, took each by the hand, but without speaking a syllable. They
gazed intently on the polished and sable space to which he had directed
their attention. Suddenly the surface assumed a new and singular
appearance. It no longer simply reflected the objects placed before it,
but, as if it had self-contained scenery of its own, objects began to
appear within it, at first in a disorderly, indistinct, and miscellaneous
manner, like form arranging itself out of chaos; at length, in distinct
and defined shape and symmetry. It was thus that, after some shifting of
light and darkness over the face of the wonderful glass, a long
perspective of arches and columns began to arrange itself on its sides,
and a vaulted roof on the upper part of it, till, after many oscillations,
the whole vision gained a fixed and stationary appearance, representing
the interior of a foreign church. The pillars were stately, and hung with
scutcheons; the arches were lofty and magnificent; the floor was lettered
with funeral inscriptions. But there were no separate shrines, no images,
no display of chalice or crucifix on the altar. It was, therefore, a
Protestant church upon the Continent. A clergyman dressed in the Geneva
gown and band stood by the communion table, and, with the Bible opened
before him, and his clerk awaiting in the background, seemed prepared to
perform some service of the church to which he belonged.

At length, there entered the middle aisle of the building a numerous
party, which appeared to be a bridal one, as a lady and gentleman walked
first, hand in hand, followed by a large concourse of persons of both
sexes, gaily, nay richly, attired. The bride, whose features they could
distinctly see, seemed not more than sixteen years old, and extremely
beautiful. The bridegroom, for some seconds, moved rather with his
shoulder towards them, and his face averted; but his elegance of form and
step struck the sisters at once with the same apprehension. As he turned
his face suddenly, it was frightfully realized, and they saw, in the gay
bridegroom before them, Sir Philip Forester. His wife uttered an imperfect
exclamation, at the sound of which the whole scene stirred and seemed to
separate.

“I could compare it to nothing,” said Lady Bothwell, while recounting the
wonderful tale, “but to the dispersion of the reflection offered by a deep
and calm pool, when a stone is suddenly cast into it, and the shadows
become dissipated and broken.” The master pressed both the ladies’ hands
severely, as if to remind them of their promise, and of the danger which
they incurred. The exclamation died away on Lady Forester’s tongue,
without attaining perfect utterance, and the scene in the glass, after the
fluctuation of a minute, again resumed to the eye its former appearance of
a real scene, existing within the mirror, as if represented in a picture,
save that the figures were movable instead of being stationary.

The representation of Sir Philip Forester, now distinctly visible in form
and feature, was seen to lead on towards the clergyman that beautiful
girl, who advanced at once with diffidence and with a species of
affectionate pride. In the meantime, and just as the clergyman had
arranged the bridal company before him, and seemed about to commence the
service, another group of persons, of whom two or three were officers,
entered the church. They moved, at first, forward, as though they came to
witness the bridal ceremony; but suddenly one of the officers, whose back
was towards the spectators, detached himself from his companions, and
rushed hastily towards the marriage party, when the whole of them turned
towards him, as if attracted by some exclamation which had accompanied his
advance. Suddenly the intruder drew his sword; the bridegroom unsheathed
his own, and made towards him; swords were also drawn by other
individuals, both of the marriage party and of those who had last entered.
They fell into a sort of confusion, the clergyman, and some elder and
graver persons, labouring apparently to keep the peace, while the hotter
spirits on both sides brandished their weapons. But now, the period of the
brief space during which the soothsayer, as he pretended, was permitted to
exhibit his art, was arrived. The fumes again mixed together, and
dissolved gradually from observation; the vaults and columns of the church
rolled asunder, and disappeared; and the front of the mirror reflected
nothing save the blazing torches and the melancholy apparatus placed on
the altar or table before it.

The doctor led the ladies, who greatly required his support, into the
apartment from whence they came, where wine, essences, and other means of
restoring suspended animation, had been provided during his absence. He
motioned them to chairs, which they occupied in silence—Lady
Forester, in particular, wringing her hands, and casting her eyes up to
heaven, but without speaking a word, as if the spell had been still before
her eyes.

“And what we have seen is even now acting?” said Lady Bothwell, collecting
herself with difficulty.

“That,” answered Baptista Damiotti, “I cannot justly, or with certainty,
say. But it is either now acting, or has been acted during a short space
before this. It is the last remarkable transaction in which the Cavalier
Forester has been engaged.”

Lady Bothwell then expressed anxiety concerning her sister, whose altered
countenance and apparent unconsciousness of what passed around her excited
her apprehensions how it might be possible to convey her home.

“I have prepared for that,” answered the adept. “I have directed the
servant to bring your equipage as near to this place as the narrowness of
the street will permit. Fear not for your sister, but give her, when you
return home, this composing draught, and she will be better to-morrow
morning. Few,” he added in a melancholy tone, “leave this house as well in
health as they entered it. Such being the consequence of seeking knowledge
by mysterious means, I leave you to judge the condition of those who have
the power of gratifying such irregular curiosity. Farewell, and forget not
the potion.”

“I will give her nothing that comes from you,” said Lady Bothwell; “I have
seen enough of your art already. Perhaps you would poison us both to
conceal your own necromancy. But we are persons who want neither the means
of making our wrongs known, nor the assistance of friends to right them.”

“You have had no wrongs from me, madam,” said the adept. “You sought one
who is little grateful for such honour. He seeks no one, and only gives
responses to those who invite and call upon him. After all, you have but
learned a little sooner the evil which you must still be doomed to endure.
I hear your servant’s step at the door, and will detain your ladyship and
Lady Forester no longer. The next packet from the Continent will explain
what you have already partly witnessed. Let it not, if I may advise, pass
too suddenly into your sister’s hands.”

So saying, he bid Lady Bothwell good-night. She went, lighted by the
adept, to the vestibule, where he hastily threw a black cloak over his
singular dress, and opening the door, entrusted his visitors to the care
of the servant. It was with difficulty that Lady Bothwell sustained her
sister to the carriage, though it was only twenty steps distant. When they
arrived at home, Lady Forester required medical assistance. The physician
of the family attended, and shook his head on feeling her pulse.

“Here has been,” he said, “a violent and sudden shock on the nerves. I
must know how it has happened.”

Lady Bothwell admitted they had visited the conjurer, and that Lady
Forester had received some bad news respecting her husband, Sir Philip.

“That rascally quack would make my fortune, were he to stay in Edinburgh,”
said the graduate; “this is the seventh nervous case I have heard of his
making for me, and all by effect of terror.” He next examined the
composing draught which Lady Bothwell had unconsciously brought in her
hand, tasted it, and pronounced it very germain to the matter, and what
would save an application to the apothecary. He then paused, and looking
at Lady Bothwell very significantly, at length added, “I suppose I must
not ask your ladyship anything about this Italian warlock’s proceedings?”

“Indeed, doctor,” answered Lady Bothwell, “I consider what passed as
confidential; and though the man may be a rogue, yet, as we were fools
enough to consult him, we should, I think, be honest enough to keep his
counsel.”

“MAY be a knave! Come,” said the doctor, “I am glad to hear your ladyship
allows such a possibility in anything that comes from Italy.”

“What comes from Italy may be as good as what comes from Hanover, doctor.
But you and I will remain good friends; and that it may be so, we will say
nothing of Whig and Tory.”

“Not I,” said the doctor, receiving his fee, and taking his hat; “a
Carolus serves my purpose as well as a Willielmus. But I should like to
know why old Lady Saint Ringan, and all that set, go about wasting their
decayed lungs in puffing this foreign fellow.”

“Ay—you had best set him down a Jesuit, as Scrub says.” On these
terms they parted.

The poor patient—whose nerves, from an extraordinary state of
tension, had at length become relaxed in as extraordinary a degree—continued
to struggle with a sort of imbecility, the growth of superstitious terror,
when the shocking tidings were brought from Holland which fulfilled even
her worst expectations.

They were sent by the celebrated Earl of Stair, and contained the
melancholy event of a duel betwixt Sir Philip Forester and his wife’s
half-brother, Captain Falconer, of the Scotch-Dutch, as they were then
called, in which the latter had been killed. The cause of quarrel rendered
the incident still more shocking. It seemed that Sir Philip had left the
army suddenly, in consequence of being unable to pay a very considerable
sum which he had lost to another volunteer at play. He had changed his
name, and taken up his residence at Rotterdam, where he had insinuated
himself into the good graces of an ancient and rich burgomaster, and, by
his handsome person and graceful manners, captivated the affections of his
only child, a very young person, of great beauty, and the heiress of much
wealth. Delighted with the specious attractions of his proposed
son-in-law, the wealthy merchant—whose idea of the British character
was too high to admit of his taking any precaution to acquire evidence of
his condition and circumstances—gave his consent to the marriage. It
was about to be celebrated in the principal church of the city, when it
was interrupted by a singular occurrence.

Captain Falconer having been detached to Rotterdam to bring up a part of
the brigade of Scottish auxiliaries, who were in quarters there, a person
of consideration in the town, to whom he had been formerly known, proposed
to him for amusement to go to the high church to see a countryman of his
own married to the daughter of a wealthy burgomaster. Captain Falconer
went accordingly, accompanied by his Dutch acquaintance, with a party of
his friends, and two or three officers of the Scotch brigade. His
astonishment may be conceived when he saw his own brother-in-law, a
married man, on the point of leading to the altar the innocent and
beautiful creature upon whom he was about to practise a base and unmanly
deceit. He proclaimed his villainy on the spot, and the marriage was
interrupted, of course. But against the opinion of more thinking men, who
considered Sir Philip Forester as having thrown himself out of the rank of
men of honour, Captain Falconer admitted him to the privilege of such,
accepted a challenge from him, and in the rencounter received a mortal
wound. Such are the ways of Heaven, mysterious in our eyes. Lady Forester
never recovered the shock of this dismal intelligence.

“And did this tragedy,” said I, “take place exactly at the time when the
scene in the mirror was exhibited?”

“It is hard to be obliged to maim one’s story,” answered my aunt, “but to
speak the truth, it happened some days sooner than the apparition was
exhibited.”

“And so there remained a possibility,” said I, “that by some secret and
speedy communication the artist might have received early intelligence of
that incident.”

“The incredulous pretended so,” replied my aunt.

“What became of the adept?” demanded I.

“Why, a warrant came down shortly afterwards to arrest him for high
treason, as an agent of the Chevalier St. George; and Lady Bothwell,
recollecting the hints which had escaped the doctor, an ardent friend of
the Protestant succession, did then call to remembrance that this man was
chiefly PRONE among the ancient matrons of her own political persuasion.
It certainly seemed probable that intelligence from the Continent, which
could easily have been transmitted by an active and powerful agent, might
have enabled him to prepare such a scene of phantasmagoria as she had
herself witnessed. Yet there were so many difficulties in assigning a
natural explanation, that, to the day of her death, she remained in great
doubt on the subject, and much disposed to cut the Gordian knot by
admitting the existence of supernatural agency.”

“But, my dear aunt,” said I, “what became of the man of skill?”

“Oh, he was too good a fortune-teller not to be able to foresee that his
own destiny would be tragical if he waited the arrival of the man with the
silver greyhound upon his sleeve. He made, as we say, a moonlight
flitting, and was nowhere to be seen or heard of. Some noise there was
about papers or letters found in the house; but it died away, and Doctor
Baptista Damiotti was soon as little talked of as Galen or Hippocrates.”

“And Sir Philip Forester,” said I, “did he too vanish for ever from the
public scene?”

“No,” replied my kind informer. “He was heard of once more, and it was
upon a remarkable occasion. It is said that we Scots, when there was such
a nation in existence, have, among our full peck of virtues, one or two
little barley-corns of vice. In particular, it is alleged that we rarely
forgive, and never forget, any injuries received—that we make an
idol of our resentment, as poor Lady Constance did of her grief, and are
addicted, as Burns says, to ‘nursing our wrath to keep it warm.’ Lady
Bothwell was not without this feeling; and, I believe, nothing whatever,
scarce the restoration of the Stewart line, could have happened so
delicious to her feelings as an opportunity of being revenged on Sir
Philip Forester for the deep and double injury which had deprived her of a
sister and of a brother. But nothing of him was heard or known till many a
year had passed away.

“At length—it was on a Fastern’s E’en (Shrovetide) assembly, at
which the whole fashion of Edinburgh attended, full and frequent, and when
Lady Bothwell had a seat amongst the lady patronesses, that one of the
attendants on the company whispered into her ear that a gentleman wished
to speak with her in private.

“‘In private? and in an assembly room?—he must be mad. Tell him to
call upon me to-morrow morning.’

“‘I said so, my lady,’ answered the man, ‘but he desired me to give you
this paper.’

“She undid the billet, which was curiously folded and sealed. It only bore
the words, ‘ON BUSINESS OF LIFE AND DEATH,’ written in a hand which she
had never seen before. Suddenly it occurred to her that it might concern
the safety of some of her political friends. She therefore followed the
messenger to a small apartment where the refreshments were prepared, and
from which the general company was excluded. She found an old man, who, at
her approach, rose up and bowed profoundly. His appearance indicated a
broken constitution, and his dress, though sedulously rendered conforming
to the etiquette of a ballroom, was worn and tarnished, and hung in folds
about his emaciated person. Lady Bothwell was about to feel for her purse,
expecting to get rid of the supplicant at the expense of a little money,
but some fear of a mistake arrested her purpose. She therefore gave the
man leisure to explain himself.

“‘I have the honour to speak with the Lady Bothwell?’

“‘I am Lady Bothwell; allow me to say that this is no time or place for
long explanations. What are your commands with me?’

“‘Your ladyship,’ said the old man, ‘had once a sister.’

“‘True; whom I loved as my own soul.’

“‘And a brother.’

“‘The bravest, the kindest, the most affectionate!’ said Lady Bothwell.

“‘Both these beloved relatives you lost by the fault of an unfortunate
man,’ continued the stranger.

“‘By the crime of an unnatural, bloody-minded murderer,’ said the lady.

“‘I am answered,’ replied the old man, bowing, as if to withdraw.

“‘Stop, sir, I command you,’ said Lady Bothwell. ‘Who are you that, at
such a place and time, come to recall these horrible recollections? I
insist upon knowing.’

“‘I am one who intends Lady Bothwell no injury, but, on the contrary, to
offer her the means of doing a deed of Christian charity, which the world
would wonder at, and which Heaven would reward; but I find her in no
temper for such a sacrifice as I was prepared to ask.’

“‘Speak out, sir; what is your meaning?’ said Lady Bothwell.

“‘The wretch that has wronged you so deeply,’ rejoined the stranger, ‘is
now on his death-bed. His days have been days of misery, his nights have
been sleepless hours of anguish—yet he cannot die without your
forgiveness. His life has been an unremitting penance—yet he dares
not part from his burden while your curses load his soul.’

“‘Tell him,’ said Lady Bothwell sternly, ‘to ask pardon of that Being whom
he has so greatly offended, not of an erring mortal like himself. What
could my forgiveness avail him?’

“‘Much,’ answered the old man. ‘It will be an earnest of that which he may
then venture to ask from his Creator, lady, and from yours. Remember, Lady
Bothwell, you too have a death-bed to look forward to; Your soul may—all
human souls must—feel the awe of facing the judgment-seat, with the
wounds of an untented conscience, raw, and rankling—what thought
would it be then that should whisper, “I have given no mercy, how then
shall I ask it?”’

“‘Man, whosoever thou mayest be,’ replied Lady Bothwell, ‘urge me not so
cruelly. It would be but blasphemous hypocrisy to utter with my lips the
words which every throb of my heart protests against. They would open the
earth and give to light the wasted form of my sister, the bloody form of
my murdered brother. Forgive him?—never, never!’

“‘Great God!’ cried the old man, holding up his hands, ‘is it thus the
worms which Thou hast called out of dust obey the commands of their Maker?
Farewell, proud and unforgiving woman. Exult that thou hast added to a
death in want and pain the agonies of religious despair; but never again
mock Heaven by petitioning for the pardon which thou hast refused to
grant.’

“He was turning from her.

“‘Stop,’ she exclaimed; ‘I will try—yes, I will try to pardon him.’

“‘Gracious lady,’ said the old man, ‘you will relieve the over-burdened
soul which dare not sever itself from its sinful companion of earth
without being at peace with you. What do I know—your forgiveness may
perhaps preserve for penitence the dregs of a wretched life.’

“‘Ha!’ said the lady, as a sudden light broke on her, ‘it is the villain
himself!’ And grasping Sir Philip Forester—for it was he, and no
other—by the collar, she raised a cry of ‘Murder, murder! seize the
murderer!’

“At an exclamation so singular, in such a place, the company thronged into
the apartment; but Sir Philip Forester was no longer there. He had
forcibly extricated himself from Lady Bothwell’s hold, and had run out of
the apartment, which opened on the landing-place of the stair. There
seemed no escape in that direction, for there were several persons coming
up the steps, and others descending. But the unfortunate man was
desperate. He threw himself over the balustrade, and alighted safely in
the lobby, though a leap of fifteen feet at least, then dashed into the
street, and was lost in darkness. Some of the Bothwell family made
pursuit, and had they come up with the fugitive they might perhaps have
slain him; for in those days men’s blood ran warm in their veins. But the
police did not interfere, the matter most criminal having happened long
since, and in a foreign land. Indeed it was always thought that this
extraordinary scene originated in a hypocritical experiment, by which Sir
Philip desired to ascertain whether he might return to his native country
in safety from the resentment of a family which he had injured so deeply.
As the result fell out so contrary to his wishes, he is believed to have
returned to the Continent, and there died in exile.”

So closed the tale of the MYSTERIOUS MIRROR.

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